From Software - My (Unannounced) Visit to Japan

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Piet Crusader of Game Crusaders had a chance to visit the Japanese developer From Software, and shared his experience in a new article.

In the autumn of 2013 I travelled through Japan for two weeks. I had various cities and temples on my list of places to visit and one very peculiar destination, the FromSoftware studio.

I am a fan of Dark Souls. It is my favourite game. It is a work of art that I have spent hundreds of hours looking at, contemplating, and experiencing. Dark Souls 2 was about four months away from getting released and I wanted to see if I could get a look behind the scenes, play a demo, or find out anything at all about the sequel. I'm not a journalist and, at the time, Game Crusaders didn't even exist yet. I didn't make an appointment. I just went there hoping to make it inside.

With the studio hidden in one of Tokyo's suburbs, it took some effort to find out where I needed to be. The hostel staff did their best to Google-map me in the right direction and with a piece of paper full of notes, train numbers and time tables I jumped on a train.​

 

LOL

lol!
that took some “courage” for sure
I suppose it’s very far from the JAP culture to do what you’ve done;
I imagine them so clueless

 

How do you walk into a Japanese studio with no appointment, without being able to speak, read, or even understand Japanese, and expect to get anything out of it?

I mean not only was that incredibly rude and suspicious, but it was also just plain silly. It's a good thing Japanese people are polite when it comes to business. I would have just kicked him out.